How many dead Taliban/Al Qaeda?
How many captured?
I know that’s a horrible way to put it, but I haven’t seen any real numbers in the news. I can find information-a-plenty about Americans killed/injured, but nothing about the ‘enemy’.
Just wondering.
Thanks.
It has an “H” in it.
You’re right. Sorry. I meant Afghanistan.
So, what’s the score?
Bush’s popularity still positive - objective achieved
As far as body counts, the Pentagon is deliberately not reporting them. Reminds them too much of Vietnam, which they don’t want to be reminded of.
Score so far:
Them:
4 Passenger planes
2 110 story skyscrapers
Several smaller buildings (if you can consider a 50 story building “small”)
About 3000 people on their way to work
About a dozen or so US soldiers (including accidents, etc)
A few helicopters
Us:
One backward, totalitarian regime
A couple of hundred Al-Quaida and Taliban waking up in Guatanimo bay every morning, glad they decided to fight the great satan
An indeterminant amount of terrorists who have been blown to dust by daisy-cutters and AC-130 gunships.
You missed out the civilian ‘collateral damage’, the total of which was discussed extensively in another thread (now lost). Reckoned IIRC from between 3,000 to 6,000.
In the European newspapers I read, there is more open discussion about the dead and maimed in Afghanistan.
No one is totally sure, because Afghanistan is a staggeringly poor country where people were starving to death before the US bombing. Also, a huge proportion of the population lost their homes and became refugees
However, the usual estimate (guesstimate?) is about 5,000 dead in Afghanistan. About 2,500 of these are estimated to have been Taliban/Al Qaeda, while the rest were the usual babies and children, and other innocents who “got in the way”, because bombs are not selective.
The above are conservative estimates. Some European journalists claim that more non-combatants have been killed in Afghanistan than died in 9/11. No one knows how many have been maimed.
We can not, we must not forget the horror of 9/11. However, please remember that the evil perpetrators of 9/11 such as Osama Bin Laden were not Afghans, but mainly from Saudi Arabia. Most Al Qaeda funding comes from Saudi Arabia, not from Iraq, Iran or North Korea.
Why has Saudi Arabia not been added to the list of terrorist states? One word answer - oil.
A search on Google.com for <Afghanistan deaths> gives a lot of cites for civilian death figures. This is a news report from the BBC -
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1740000/1740538.stm
Even higher than the estimates I quoted above.
Yes, that is tragic. The problem is that war is not about “keeping score”. It is not a matter of “we killed x more of them than they killed of us so we win”.
Yeah, it’s not about keeping score. Odd though, when I saw those numbers of civilian dead, and then outnumberinig those killed in WTC, Pentagon and plane passengers, the fact that we do tend to keep score indicates the sad attempts we make to rationalize war, and to criticize it.
Bombs are not selective. I think it was Franks who said that they had been very successful in the air campaign. From the outset I was waiting to hear the “collateral damage” reports. When they came in, I was saddened. Even as advanced as military technology has become, they still can’t avoid innocents.
IF we were to keep score, we’d have to take into account that the US has a population outnumbering Afghanistan’s more than 100 times. You’d think life would be held even more precious…
Er… “more than 10 times” I think you mean:
Afghanistan: 26,813,057
United States: 278,058,881
The Taliban is out of power presently, but are they so reduced in numbers and influence that they will not be able to regain their position? I am unsure. I hear reports that they are still quite popular in the southern half of Afghanistan. Perhaps the locals there prefer the Taliban’s medieval severe stability to the banditry and corruption of the northern warlords.
Is Al-Queda destroyed or just redistributed?
If someone had the time, they could pull the Pentagon claims on “Operation Anaconda” to compare all the numbers about how many of the enemy there were estimated to be there at various times, how many were known and beleived to have been killed and captured, and how many are estimated to have successfully escaped to fight another day. It seems to me that initially the number of “bad guys” was estimated high, then reassessed much lower when it became known that some portion of the total had walked out of the Anaconda’s supposedly inescapable grip.
As we saw in Vietman, body count puts a lot of emphasis on bloodshed and indirectly encourages including those who “got in the way” into the total of enemy fighters killed. One seldom-reported touchstone for the accuracy of the count in those days was the number of weapons captured (not to include pointed sticks and throwable rocks, please). We are not seeing this number reported in this war, either…
…hehe, sticky 00 key here. See, I did it again!
Lotsa folks who who made up the “majority” ethnic group (can’t think of the name off the top of my head, somebody gimme a hand) are now feeling very nervous since the new government is largely made up of non-majority components. Many military figures (former Mujahideen, now militia/military) still have bones to pick. History repeats itself, but I hope we don’t see another civil war there or it’d be a contender for world record for least amount of time between civil wars.
I think it’s 27-13, with the Americans coming on strong in the second half. Will it go into overtime?
happyheathen, are you for real? You really think going after Taliban is to keep Bush’s approval rating high, not to get rid of these violent freaks and save our country ? Oh my…
well dudes a plenty I wouldn’t doubt that Bush’s popularity has something to do with it. After all he is able to now say that anyone disagreeing with him is unpatriotic, so every bill he offers should be passed immediately or you’re against America. If I recall he did say this regarding the budget bill (I think I read that in U.S. News and World Report). And it sure helps him when raising funds for those Republicans. Just to be fair, I would think it a load of bull if it came from the lips of Democratic president too.
That aside, the numbers game is uncertain. How many depends on who you’re talking to. I’ve heard reports the placed the death toll somewhere under 1000. Just of clarity those were anti-American reports which were trying to say something along the lines of “ha ha, you failed to do anything, terrorists will come and kill you in your sleep”
Collateral damage is also different. US sources will tell you there has been no collateral damage, after all our missles can shoot down a hallway, and hit a specific room in a specific apartment. Well, except for that village recently. But for some reason people refuse to believe that we have the technology to do this. We do, have for a decade. Now I’m not a government official so I don’t have to say there has been no collateral damage, but I rather doubt its anywhere near 1000 people.
galrion, are you saying this war shouldn’t be fought? What should Bush have done? Nothing? That would send the message to the nasty violent people/countries of the world that you can kick our ass, we don’t care. Come on, kick our ass. I admit I like Bush and I’m fairly conservative and I think you’re the opposite, but that shouldn’t play into a logical discussion amongst nice polite people such as ourselves !
no no, I don’t think we shouldn’t be going in there and doing something. I just think that its always bad form when a president starts to say that you shouldn’t disagree with him or his bills because its unpatriotic in a time of war. Frankly as far as a “time of war” goes it has no similarity to other wars the US fought. The basic survival of the United States is not at stake, our drafted boys aren’t over there dying by the thousands. We’ve had a handful of deaths against an outclassed opponent. To call for unity in “this time of war” is ridiculous when what is meant by the call is rubberstamping the bills of the president.
I’m not the opposite, just somewhere in the middle, a fencesitter as someone called me on monday